


The Checkers Match of Death

by PenNameArtist



Category: Planes (Movies)
Genre: Gen, Shenanigans, checker match, hot pepper challenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-19
Updated: 2020-02-19
Packaged: 2021-02-28 05:42:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,906
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22798759
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PenNameArtist/pseuds/PenNameArtist
Summary: What was once a day of cleaning out the base that became a fun checker-matchthenbecame a checker-match of unimaginable consequences the likes of which neither fire and rescue helicopters ever anticipated.T for swearing.
Comments: 10
Kudos: 9





	The Checkers Match of Death

Fire season was finally on its way out for the year, the weather cooling down and calls for rain moving in. In between the transition was a small window of days that many would describe as the best weather: 72 degrees, low humidity, and clusters of breezes swept in from the coast. Simply put, perfection.  
The contents of the closet in the back of the main hangar hadn’t seen the light of day in at least twenty years. Nobody even remembered what was in there, though Drip and Maru would teasingly speculate it was likely piles of blackmail. They knew Blade still had a CHoPs blooper reel laying around somewhere. He hated the sight of it, but he never had the heart to get rid of them.  
That small window of perfect days felt like a good enough excuse for a deep-clean of the base. Everyone mostly worked on their own hangars, though the Smokejumpers and Maru all pitched in to help Patch with the kitchen and dining area. Then there was the main hangar, which Blade had initially offered to take care of...until it became apparent that there was going to need to be a lot more treads working on that disaster.  
The main hangar was put off for the first couple of days, since everyone else decided it better to be a full-crew project, so the rest of the base was cleaned up a bit, some hedges trimmed to prevent them overgrowing into a tangled mess in front of the electric gates (also adorned with new “no trespassing” signs - and maybe, just maybe, one that read “if you can read this, you’re in range.”), and much thanks to the girls, there were some nice new potted plants around many of the hangar doors.  
“A late Christmas gift.” Dipper said.  
Each of the planted pots were filled with different setups of flowers, supposedly best representing the owner of the hangar it was set in front of. Maru’s workshop had a pair of ferns hanging from the ceilings, as well as an aloe vera plant out front.  
“No promises I won’t kill it.” Maru said.  
Windlifter’s base had a few irises and a pair of bright freesias; Cabbie had purple asters and a whole pot full of bright black-eyed susans, which butterflies appeared to fancy out of all the other plants on the base. Since the smokejumpers all stayed in the same hangar, they each had their own bouquets around their respective sleeping areas, and a few window sills full of forget-me-nots; Blade had already previously put a line of marigold flowers at the side of his own hangar, for his own reasons, but Dipper decided to add a small selection of gardenias and heather as well; Patch had her own daisies and zinnias to take care of, and of course even though it was currently absent, Dusty’s hangar had been all but decked out with roses.  
It wasn’t actually until the end of the week, when they were expecting rain the following day, that they finally had the willpower to buckle down and get the main hangar cleaned. And as they had expected, it was quite a process.  
Everyone on base had something in there. Even those who were no longer a part of that station, either after unforeseen accidents or because they had been laid off from their job after Cad showed up. Some of Paul’s things were even there, though he’d swore up and down everything on that base that was his went with him back to Washington.  
It took a bit of hard pulling and a crowbar to yank the closet door from the frame on its ancient, rusted up hinges, but the Smokejumpers pulled it off. Even if it hadn’t worked, Blackout was always their plan B.  
As expected, everything that was in the cabinet was...old. Ancient. Coated in so much dust that even from across the room, team members had stopped to sneeze. In particular, it was giving Blade some bad memories of the dust in the mines. Come to think of it, he should probably let Jammer know about that soon, since he had been planning to restore them as a tourist attraction…  
The team went full-bore into the compartment, pulling everything that was tightly packed in there out to at least give it the sun it was badly lacking. Here and there, “ooh!”s of surprise that someone had rediscovered a long lost item sounded out. A lot of things were in boxes still, thickly taped and, in some cases, literally wrapped like a present with heavy-duty, good old fashioned duct tape.  
“Well we know which ones are mine..” Maru said.  
Cabbie had recovered some misplaced photo albums, Windlifter some rugs and a lamp from moving in, which he’d unconsciously left on the back-burner and then promptly forgot about as their line of work ensued; Dipper had managed to dig up a few very, very old pieces of fanfiction that she seemed to have embarrassingly forgotten existed.  
“I was new to the whole thing! It was a learning curve!” She said.  
No one dared ask what those papers were actually fiction about. Best to let that one remain unknown.  
Patch and Maru both found an entire treasure trove of records - some of which were broken, to everyone’s collective dismay, but not all. Blade was glad they didn’t have some young tech nerd in their group to come and tell them they were all living thirty years behind the norm.  
Then it was Blade’s turn to deal with some embarrassing past things. It started humbly enough - a box of CHoPs momentos, decals, some leftover scripts that the Smokejumpers swiped for “investigation”, and then…  
“Oh my god, the pen.”  
The infamous pen. Blade had made the mental note never to discuss it again after CHoPS ended, hoping that it would be a story to take to the grave. But no such luck, as it had resurfaced, yet again, and every member on the base was suddenly very eager to hear all the juicy details of it’s apparent past.  
“It was a dumb gag for a really long time, that’s it.” Blade said.  
Actually, it had become less of a gag and more of a secret system between him and Nick back in the day. Firstly, it was Blade’s pen. The way he liked pens - it clicked, it worked without too rich of an ink that bled through pages or caused big ink blots, and it wasn’t particularly scratchy on paper. It was also canary yellow, and easy to find. Which made it also easy for Nick to find. And steal.  
The stealing and then the stealing back of the pen had made it’s way beyond the two partners after a while, to the rest of the cast and even to the directors. It was hard to stifle any laughs when the Agustawestland was shouting from across the tarmac for the Hughes canopy on a plate with his freaking pen. Nick was completely cool and nonchalant about it, until he would get it back - usually by way of force. Which occasionally led to other things besides pens.  
And then things escalated; No longer was there the fight of the pen (Blade had given up fighting for it and found another one that was just as good) but the messages that transpired from the pen. Nick had a very large collection of sticky notes, in every color you could think of. It was his way of writing off tickets to unsuspecting vehicles, especially hated from them from wherein he would leave them, like on the beams of the hangar ceilings.  
There was bound to be a new one somewhere in Blade’s hangar every morning, with some stupid cheesy saying. A “Good morning partner!” on the bedside table; “how’s the caffeine?” on the coffee pot; “please excuse the idiot” on his helmet; and eventually the “I got yo’ pen” on the desk that finally put an end to the shenanigans for the rest of eternity.  
It was then that the pen had been snapped in two. Now, in the box, it lay in two near-equal halves, wrapped together with a rubber band.  
“Put it back, I don’t want to look at it.” Blade said, grinning even as he spoke.  
Then another momento came out from the bottom of the box - it was hard wood and square, with a black and white checkered top and an inner drawer full of playing pieces, and a lot of battle scars.  
“Well there’s a leap back in time if I ever had one.”  
The checker board wasn’t from CHoPs, though Blade was sure they had used it at some point then. No, this went back even farther. Back to Oklahoma in the late 1940s. It was his family’s. He must have, however unintentional, taken ownership of it when he’d moved to L.A.  
The dark green whirlybird beside him eyed the now tattered-looking painted top of the board. It definitely didn’t look factory-made.  
“Do you play?” He heard the air boss ask him.  
“Not in many years.” Windlifter answered.  
“I’d pay good money-” Maru said, in between hauling still more boxes out of the closet - “to see the choppers duke it out in a match.”  
“CHECKER MATCH!” Avalanche shouted from the back of the room.  
“After we finish, if there’s still daylight.” Blade concluded, leaving the board somewhere they’d be able to reach later. “For now let’s finish cleaning out the closet.”

It took a good solid hour and a half to work out the rest of the junk piled into the back room of the hangar, but they did it. Everything was pulled out, they sorted through what was keeping and what was going in tomorrow’s garbage run, and everything that they had leftover from the keeps pile that wasn’t being relocated - most of that including old momento items and things that didn’t have any real use - went back into the closet, in a neater, less disaster-zone-ish pile.  
The sun hadn’t even touched the treetops on the horizon yet when they finished, so as stated, the board came out and was set up in front of the hangar. Windlifter took black and Blade took red - the most fitting matches for them both - and everyone else stood around to spectate.  
The game was mostly silent as the two choppers concentrated, everyone else seeming to hold their breaths as they waited for the next player’s move. Both of them hadn’t played in ages, but they also never forgot how to play, and they were pretty evenly matched as far as skill went.  
Before the match even began, the Smokejumpers had bets laid out on who would win. Nobody bet a lot - a few bucks in one basket, a can of high-grade in the other, and so on. Winner took the loser’s loot pile.  
“Traitor.” Blade said, watching Maru put his favored high-grade can in the other’s betting bucket.  
For a little while, it almost seemed like the two of them were about to reach an impasse - neither side able for a piece to even move, let alone get taken out by another piece. But Blade made one slight error and put one of his men on the line without seeing it, and the checker was taken out instantly.  
“Damn…” He muttered.  
“He was a good soldier.” Dipper said.  
After that mistake, many more “soldiers” were lost in the battle, as their numbers became few and far between across the map. Wind made it to the first king in the game, the piece adorned with the checker of a previously lost soldier of his. Blade was treading over some seriously hot water for a while after that, until he snagged two kings himself and took out one of Windlifter’s before he could claim rule over four. In just a few more turns, the playing field was cleared out, all that remained were two black kings, one red king, and his little red checker soldier fighting to claim a crown of his own. He didn’t make it.  
“Who wants to raise the stakes on the bet?” Drip offered, to which the majority of the team hastily agreed.  
“What’s a good high stake for both of them?” Pinecone asked.  
“Loser has to finish cleaning the base alone?” Blackout suggested.  
“Ehh, it’s mostly done already.” Cabbie said.  
As the game slowly continued, the others congregated on what would really be a good bet to liven up the action. The two choppers tried to play it cool while they overheard the topic of the stakes, though it should be said that the more ideas were suggested, the more worried the two felt about how this was going to go down.  
And then Patch suggested it - the thing that everyone agreed was a punishment enough to endure for losing the game. And the sideways glances of both competitors confirmed it was a stake worthy of being implemented to the game.  
‘What hell have we unleashed…’ they thought.  
Patch went off to order them while the two set to completing the game, and discovering which unlucky soul would take on the suffering of the loss. It were as though lives might be at stake the way they played - neither one could back down. Blade basically hopped around the board for twenty minutes with two kings on his ass until one of them was eventually taken out - he must have pitied the other to make such a deliberately vulnerable move. And then there were two, just one king on each side of the war side-stepping across the board in their last dance. It was another while of fighting for their lives, before Windlifter offered a treaty.  
“What if we call it a tie,” He said, “And we both take on the consequences of the loss together.”  
Blade considered this a moment, thinking about their predicament and how seemingly ‘impossible for either to win’ it was. One wasn’t going to just offer themselves to the other, so they might be stuck here for an eternity fighting to win, and not have to endure the act of punishment for losing the game. Finally, he nodded his agreement.  
“It’s a draw then.”  
“I am genuinely looking forward to this.” Cabbie said.  
Oh what hell awaited them indeed.

“Don’t worry,” Maru said, “If anyone dies, Dipper can take over as chief and we’ll get Dusty out here to be second-in-command.”  
“I shudder to imagine what kind of a world that would be.” Blade said.  
The package had taken a few days to ship out to them, but it worked out in the end as the rains were here when it did, so if anybody really was, at most, incapacitated for a day or so, there wasn’t as much of a posing threat to their positions in the air attack team.  
“Remind me again,” Windlifter said, “Why we’re doing this.”  
“Because neither of you won the checkers match and must pay the price.” Maru replied, with a downright wicked grin. This would surely be a day to go down in history. Or a day to use as blackmail against their wills. Blade was just thankful the SEAT wasn’t here to witness this. Hell had indeed come for the two choppers, in the form of a bag of small, special red fruits.  
Ghost peppers.  
“The worst I’ve had is a few jalapenos…” Blade said.  
“Oh they’re nothing compared to these bad boys.” Drip explained, “These things are monsters!”  
Of course even with dangerously hot peppers, the team came prepared, with a few milk jugs, ice cream containers, and some trash cans, in case of...involuntary bodily refusals.  
“Prepared to have two more pictures on the wall.” Maru said, as he gave each chopper a single pepper. They were fairly small, short and very lumpy looking and shriveled, and bright red in color.  
“Only fair to take them at the same time.” Blade said.  
“Whenever you’re ready.” Windlifter replied.  
If it hadn’t been for pride, neither would have taken up the challenge. The ghost pepper was notorious for being one of the hottest peppers on earth, and it wasn’t hard to see why the second the two took them.  
“I think...I just tasted death.” Was the only thing the Agustawestland managed to say, as the onslaught began.  
It was like literally swallowing hell itself. The burning sensation spread faster than a wildfire in a forest of dry, dead brush, all through their mouths, throats and through their entire fuselages. Windlifter at least was able to keep a somewhat straight face against the flames; Blade was overcome with constant, violent hiccups.  
“Death...it’s literally death. Fucking hell…” It wasn’t long before the smaller helicopter caved and went for the milk jug. Even then it only managed to minutely numb the pain.  
“The ice cream will help more.” Pinecone offered.  
Not long after, the Skycrane caved also, coughing hoarsely as the heat of the pepper continued to rage and torment. There was a solid ten minutes before either had ingested enough lactose to be able to breathe and speak somewhat normally, though it would still be some time before the heat finally faded.  
“That was...possibly the worst thing I’ve ever had.” Windlifter said finally, when it was all said and done. The red and white chopper just stood silently with a face of confused agony, before finally declaring,  
“You’re all fired.”

**Author's Note:**

> -I feel like, to an aircraft, having a personal pen is really nice, and probably somewhat standard for them. I mean, they have to write stuff with their mouths. Sharing one between aircraft just seems slightly unsanitary. Which is exactly why Nick doesn’t care and steals Blade’s all the time.
> 
> -Technically, the ghost pepper is no longer the hottest of peppers, that title goes to I believe the Carolina Reaper. But it’s still a really, really, really hot pepper. I do not recommend it, unless you are that stupid, or have no other choice - like they did.


End file.
